 If you’re like us, relaxing in a comfy chair with a mug of hot cocoa and a good book is the best way to spend the holiday season. Books are also a powerful way to explore diverse perspectives and reflect on the shared experiences that make us all humans. Stories about the immigrant experience can be a particularly powerful way to explore themes from language and culture to love and loss. Building off our previous book blog from 2021, volunteers at KAMA DC wanted to share with you some of our favorite stories written by first- and second-generation immigrants that touch on the experience of migration and all of the hardships and triumphs that accompany it. We also encourage you to purchase from local bookstores or check them out from your public library for free! By purchasing from local bookstores, you are not only helping to support the local community, but more of your purchase will go toward the author. Check out our list of local DMV bookstores at the bottom of this page. Without further ado, here is our list of 6 books about the immigrant experience that we recommend: Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo  Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake--a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she's led--her sisters are surprised. Has Flor forseen her own death, or someone else's? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. I loved this book because of how completely it spans the immigrant experience. Acevedo gives the reader insight into the minds of characters who are older immigrants, young immigrants, children of immigrants, and even one who repatriates temporarily back to the Dominican Republic. The story time jumps between present day New York City and Santo Domingo 30 years prior, and likewise, the language flits between English and Spanish without the "explanatory comma," emulating the way that people actually talk. All in all, the novel feels authentic to many stories of immigration, without feeling like it's biting off more than it can chew, and it does so with humor, grace, and depth. - Priyanka Exit West by Mohsin Hamid In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. In spite of its grand, speculative premise, at the heart of this story is an intimate and zoomed in picture of a young couple going through the pains of new love, growth, and loss after a civil war suddenly breaks out, forcing them to leave home. Told with rich prose and deep insight, every sentence feels deliberate and artfully crafted. Pick up this book if you love heartfelt stories of migration with a bit of sci-fi zest! - Allie Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang Valentina Tran was named after Valentine's Day, which used to be her favorite holiday. But when Val learns the truth behind what happened with her parents and why she's being raised by a single father, she realizes true love is a lie. This is reinforced when she meets the spirit of Saint Valentine, who tells her she and her family are cursed to always be unlucky in love. Val is ready to give into her fate, until one Lunar New Year festival, where a mysterious lion dancer hands her a paper heart, and ZING. Val becomes determined to change her destiny, prove Saint Valentine wrong, and give her heart to the right person. Graphic novel superstars Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham join forces in this heartwarming rom-com about fate, family, forgiveness, and lion dancing. I picked up this book at this year’s National Book Festival and did not regret it! Set in Oakland, California, this is a sweet, beautifully illustrated story about finding belonging in your family, connecting with your cultural roots, and maybe falling in love along the way. I especially loved the passages where Valentina, our lead, is learning to lion dance, literally moving with her partner as one, and connecting with people in her community as a result. - Aurora Colored Television by Danzy Senna  Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,” she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content” for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.” She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong. I could not put this book down - addictive, relatable and a little anxiety-inducing at the same time. Senna does a great job of tapping into the insecurities of the main character and navigating the reader through their lies and terrible mistakes, only to be rooting for them in the end. Highly recommend! - Shireen Missed Translations by Sopan Deb Approaching his 30th birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew that his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don’t? A wonderful read that communicates both the humor and heartache of an immigrant story, a family story, and a story of growth. It is a book where all, regardless of personal experience, will find something familiar, something new, or at least something to reflect upon in their own life. - Ben Severance by Ling MA  Approaching his 30th birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew that his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don’t? A post-apocalyptic imagination about a pandemic of biblical proportions, the most shocking thing about Severance is not that it isn’t the literary predecessor to the critically acclaimed show by the same name, but rather that it was written in 2018, entirely before the actual pandemic we all lived through. That Chinese-American author Ling Ma predicted the societal collapse, the xenophobia, the empty offices, the chasm between “first world problems” and community care is a testament to the survival instincts, self-awareness, and sustainability mindset that’s all too familiar to the immigrant community. This book will not make you nostalgic for the pandemic era — there are no sourdough recipes, celebrity singalongs, or quiet evenings spent at home — only shock, thrill, and heartbreak are to be found in the wake of this uncanny tale. - Halah Local Bookstores to Support in the DMV:
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorKAMA DC provides a platform for immigrants to teach classes and share stories based on their skills and passions. Archives
October 2022
Categories |
RSS Feed